A look into Preparing Secondary Science Teachers with Citizen Science
Keywords:
ecojustice, teacher preparation, ethnography, collaboration, citizen scienceAbstract
Ecojustice philosophy is an exciting approach for science education that can increase student and community interactions while promoting awareness of culture, science, and learning. The research presented here was collected over one semester of a secondary science teacher preparation course that utilized ecojustice philosophy and citizen science as a framework for instruction. Highlighted in this article are expectations of the professor and university, assignments and daily course activities, the location of courses as they serve as exemplars of enacting ecojustice philosophy, and perspectives from preservice teachers on what they were learning. This research shares that when pre-service teachers are allowed to participate in philosophical and pedagogical approaches to science instruction that contradict the familiar, they express discomfort. However, these learning opportunities have long-term potential benefits. By forcing preservice teachers to step outside of their comfortable spaces and into class being held in the rain, their perceptions of teaching and learning were defied. In turn, these related experiences encouraged them to alter their teaching practices to co-exist alongside a new framework of ecojustice philosophy, a philosophy that highlights the benefit to challenging assumptions and promoting diversity in thought and action. The ability to consider alternative perspectives, at least for these preservice teachers, provided rewards that may be felt by their students, such as a deeper appreciation for and involvement within the local community.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The authors are responsible for the veracity of the information provided and for the content of the papers.
The authors who publish in this journal fully agree with the following terms:
- The authors attest that the work is unpublished, that is, it has not been published in another journal, event notices or equivalent.
- The authors attest that they did not submit the paper to another journal simultaneously.
- The authors retain the copyright and grant to RPBEC the right of first publication, with the work licensed simultaneously under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows the sharing of the work with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The authors attest that they own the copyright or the written permission from copyright owners of figures, tables, large texts, etc. that are included in the paper.
- Authors are authorized to take additional contracts separately, for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in this journal (for example, to publish in institutional repository or as a book chapter), with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after the publication in order to increase the impact and citation of published work.
In case of identification of plagiarism, inappropriate republishing and simultaneous submissions, the authors authorize the Editorial Board to make public what happened, informing the editors of the journals involved, any plagiarized authors and their institutions of origin.